Before this discussion goes any further: This thread is about the announcement of several titles on Blu-ray. Detailed discussion of the content of those films belongs in the Movies area. There is an existing official discussion thread about The Passion of the Christ. Any further discussion of...
Note that I did not use the terms "inappropriate", "compromised" or similar language. Nor would I, since Gump was also released to theaters in Dolby Surround (1994 being relatively early in the deployment of discrete digital systems). I was simply trying to explain why your comparison of the...
It's not an unusual reaction with a 5.1 mix that's front-anchored with relatively light use of the surrounds. In comparison, a 2.0 track decoded through ProLogic sends a lot more sound to the rear channels simply because of the "bleed" phenomenon. Switch to the discrete mix, and suddenly the...
It's not surprising you found that more "immersive", but that's because of the sound format. ProLogic is less precise than discrete 5.1 formats, and sound "bleeds" into the rear channels even when it's not supposed to be there. You could probably get much the same effect from the DVD by...